Richard Pinhas, Tatsuya Yoshida and Masama Akita - Process and Reality (Cuneiform, 2016) ****½

By Derek Stone

Process and Reality is the latest release from three titans of experimental music: Richard Pinhas, French guitarist and founder of the 1970’s electronic-rock group Heldon; Tatsuya Yoshida, who is best known as the percussionist, vocalist, and core member of the revolving-door bass-drums duo Ruins; and Masama Akita, more easily recognizable under the moniker Merzbow, and often considered to be the “grandfather of noise.” While Pinhas has worked with each of these artists before on various occasions, Process and Reality marks the first time that they have performed together - and, after listening to this swirling, delirious slab of textures and rhythms, one can only wonder why they didn’t come together sooner.

“TVJ 00 (Intro)” doesn’t waste any time, propelling the listener into a sound-world that is somewhere between a tribalistic freak-out and a post-apocalyptic cityscape - the droning, raga-referencing guitar and urgent drumwork lend it the former aspect, while Masama Akita’s occasional infusions of ear-scraping static tip it towards the latter. Compared to the introduction, “TVJ 33 (Core Track)” is considerably more relaxed and atmospheric; Yoshida’s rhythms are as frenetic as ever, but they’re submerged beneath swirling, trance-inducing layers of noise and Pinhas’ effects-laden guitar sound. The interplay between the busy percussion and the time-stretched ambience is absolutely stunning, and it suspends the listener in a curious realm where constant forward movement and absolute stillness are mixed and melded - although “TVJ 33 (Core Track),” the ostensible centerpiece of the album, is more than a half-hour long, it speeds by like a composition of half that length. Much of that is due to the attention to detail that Pinhas, Yoshida, and Akita have provided; though first impressions might paint the piece as an indistinct wash of sound, subsequent listens reveal the throbbing, ever-moving life underneath - gorgeous melodies rise out of the maelstrom, pass through your attention nearly undetected, only to become subsumed again. Likewise, Yoshida’s percussion-work is fluid and supple, but never limp - into a composition that might otherwise be an extended ambient piece, he injects wild vigor. When he does drop out of the mix, however, around the twenty-five minute mark, Pinhas and Akita more than make up for his absence: they offer a brief, cosmic interlude that gives the listener time to breathe before the trio carry the track to its roiling conclusion.

“TVJ 66 (Non-Sens)” is quite similar to what has come before, but Masama Akita sends the group’s hitherto dreamy, ecstatic sound down the warped and wobbly conveyor-belt of his imagination, slathering on his trademark layers of harsh noise. As its name suggests, “TVJ 77 (Quiet Final)” closes the album on a softer note, with gentle pulses of sound that steadily multiply and encircle one another, all until Yoshida’s hyperactive drumwork pops up to lend the throbbing, alien electronics a dash of stone-cold groove. It’s a fitting end to an album that thrives on contradictions: between ambient expansiveness and tightly-wound rhythms, between warm melodicism and steely slices of noise, between digital and analog. Process and Reality is an incredible display of what can happen when three musicians who have run the gamut of experimental music come together to create something new - it’s not quite like anything the individual players have made, nor is it a complete departure. It’s simply three guys, playing to their strengths, and making one of the finest records of 2016.

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Introducing Violinist Irene Kepl

By Eyal Hareuveni

Austrian, classically-trained violinist-composer Irene Kepl defies any attempt to categorize her work. Her music navigates freely between contemporary music, free improvisation, modern jazz and “groove based music”. Kepl has recorded duo albums with German tuba player Carl Ludwig Hübsch and American, Vienna-based drummer Mark Holub (the bandleader of Led Bib) and performed with innovative improvisers as Joëlle Leàndre, Tristan Honsinger, Mats Gustafsson and Joe McPhee.

George Cremaschi / Irene Kepl / Petr Vrba - Resonators (Another Timbre, 2016) ****

Kepl initiated the trio with American, Prague-based, double bass player George Cremaschi and Czech trumpet player Petr Vrba (who have worked together as the Los Amargados duo and in a trio with Berlin-based contrabass clarinet player Chris Heenan), organizing a series of concerts in a Viennese church with unique acoustics. The trio decided to continue investigating how the timbral qualities of their acoustic instruments, enhanced by subtle amplification and feedback devices, evolve in similar highly reverberant spaces.  

Resonators was recorded in unusually resonant, old stone buildings in the Czech Republic on a four-days tour in June 2015. Each of these spaces - The small, 13th century St. John Baptiste church in Prague, The 14th monastery in Roudnice nad Labem and the 15th century monastery in Bechynět and the 17th century hall in the former summer palace of a royal family, Valdstejn Loggia in the Jičín region - had its distinct acoustic characteristics, critical to the use of amplification and feedback. The four pieces on Resonators emphasize patiently different musical ideas - vibration, duration and resonance,, enabling the three musicians to to abstract these ideas with their own personal languages.

Cremaschi “Affective Labor” stresses the kinetic and elastic qualities of the amplified sounds,  enhancing the acoustic instruments resonating qualities in the reverberant space, creating continuous layers of multiplied, interlaced overtones that become deeper and deeper. Kepl “Soma” employs the trio loose interplay to suggest gentle waves of sounds, patiently echoing each musician gestures. Vrba “Locus Resonatus” is the most intense piece. Each sound is mirrored in the other musicians output, methodically reflected and multi-layered in the room ambiance while the trio interplay gains more momentum, density and powerful, almost orchestral, intensity. Kepl short “Pirol” is the only piece that highlights the trio immediate, free-improvising sensibility as all three musicians explore parallel ideas in the resonant space.

An arresting musical journey that keeps resonating on and on.

Irene Kepl - SololoS (Fou Records, 2016) ***½

Kepl adopts American post-modernist choreographer-dancer Trisha Brown advice to frame her own aesthetics: “Dancing on the edge is the only place to be”. Kepl debut solo violin album explore edgy terrains of playing the violin or playing with violin. Kepl summarizes on SololoS her past years experiences of the of playing solo violin performances - interpretations, composition and free-improvisation. Kepl follows, even loses herself, within the violin timbral colors, uses her voice to enhance the instrument colors, plays, game-like, with subtle feedback, conquers the space, feels the resonating sounds of the violin in her body and creates multi-layered overtones.

The 12 pieces of SololoS were recorded on one day on March 2016 in the Northern suburb of Paris La Garenne-Colombes, offer her highly-personal, rich and commanding language.. She investigates the timbral spectrum of the violin with extended bowing techniques on “Here Is the Thing” or the effect of repetitive-minimalist texture on “AmiNIMAL”; searches microtonal sounds on “Move Across”; explores how the intense bowing or scratching the strings correspond with the recording space on “Lucid” or how her voice extends the violin and vice versa on the quiet “Candid” and stormy “Apogee”. She even sketches playful songs on the twisted “forget-me-not” and the ironic “Walzer On The Roof” and revisits her musical roots on “Bacino”.

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Onno Govaert, Marcelo dos Reis, Luís Vicente, Kristján Martinsson – In Layers (FMR, 2016) ****

By Dan Sorrells

Reading deeply into album titles may not be the strongest critical practice, but there surely are resonances between the music, titles, and art of In Layers. Luís Vicente and Marcelo dos Reis have cultivated an aesthetic across several groups – notably Fail Better!, Chamber 4, and FRAME Trio – with a strong sense of space, evoking both openness and an awareness of form, of how each musical layer coheres into larger conceptual structures. There’s more than a glimmer of that aesthetic here, though In Layers also pushes into regions of tension and density, spaces closing rather than opening, tightening into tunnels of sound.

Much of this energy and intensity is brought by Amsterdam-based musicians Onno Govaert (who plays with Vicente in Twenty One 4tet along with Cactus Truck cohort John Dikeman) and Kristján Martinsson (a pianist who has led both Icelandic and Dutch versions of his K tríó). Though far more subtle than Cactus Truck, the music on In Layers is often driven by Govaert’s direct drumming style, which even in nuanced moments has a rock ‘n’ roll sure-handedness. Tracks like “Fresco” and “Pentimenti” build and sustain crescendos, alive with the no-hesitation forward motion of juggling or walking across beds of coals. These are some of the most restless contexts in which we’ve heard dos Reis, and on “Fresco” he locks into a repeating figure that becomes the pivot the rest of the band surges around. In nearly every situation, what’s most refreshing about dos Reis is that he never sounds like a “free improviser”—his musical decisions are considered, even simple, willing to risk one bold note rather than twenty unconvincing ones.

Thrilling as the more energetic pieces are, the moody, introspective tracks are In Layer’s strong point. Opener “Glaze” eases into being, Vicente as quiet and intense as a held-in scream. He has become a player of truly formidable technique, his granular, textural palette recalling players like Nate Wooley or Peter Evans. Elsewhere, “Varnish” is an antique shop in the dark, all dampened piano and guitar strings, gonging cymbals, and Vicente’s creaking muted trumpet. “Underdrawing” closes the album in the same unbounded mode as “Glaze,” somehow both open and claustrophobic, centering on some bluesy guitar as the other instruments begin to thin, layers peeled back one by one, or, as in a vast desert, strata of dust being stripped by the wind.

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Ned Rothenberg, Mark Feldman, Sylvie Courvoisier - In Cahoots (Clean Feed, 2016) ****½

By Stefan Wood

The album "In Cahoots" is an inventive, atmospheric, and exploratory trio session, featuring Ned Rothenberg (clarinet, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, shakuhachi), Mark Feldman (violin), and Sylvie Courvoisier (piano).  Each track is full of tension and dynamic interplay.  

A standout track is "Epic Proportions," where Courvoisier's piano excursions reach out far into the unknown, building and then tearing down, pushing in one direction then pulling back.  Rothenberg and Feldman each draw upon diverse influences - Japanese classical music and gypsy folk -- that mix with Courvoisier's sound, coagulate and then quietly burst.  The interplay is tight and full of surprising turns and twists.  The title track, "In Cahoots," exemplifies this, a twelve plus minute improvisation that blurs the sounds of all three instruments into a very organic, and highly developed soundscape.  There is also a strong classical influence on the music.  "Primary," a quick three minute track, is a delicate and intricate track that features the interactive play of Feldman's violin and Rothenberg's clarinet, feeling like a mixture of Bartok with John Carter.  

Available from clean feed records, "In Cahoots" is another top notch album in their extensive catalogue of outstanding modern music.  Rothenberg, Feldman and Courvoisier bring to the table an album that is quite unique, and is highly recommended.

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Schlippenbach Trio - Warsaw Concert (Intakt, 2016) ****½

By Martin Schray

When the Schlippenbach Trio (Alexander von Schlippenbach, piano; Evan Parker, tenor and Paul Lovens, drums) hit the stage, there’s no plan. After 45 years, it’s unnecessary, but it does raise the question whether genuine improvisation is possible after such a long time. According to Derek Bailey, once something has become established, it gravitates to mere reproduction and the risk of cliché. That’s sometimes the case – not invariably so – and familiarity has its own advantages. Evan Parker supports established working groups. He claims that if you play regularly in these contexts it’s like practicing your instrument, expanding the ways to express what you want to say, though admittedly there’s a danger of repetition, certain habits or conveniences. Few things worth doing are risk free, and avoiding pitfalls is part of the challenge when improvising.

Parker says that the trio’s credo is about expressing as much as possible within their established vocabulary. At the outset, it was about breaking into new areas (First Recordings, Trost Records, 1972/2015), then - in the 1980s to early 1990s when they‘d found their way – there were classic albums such as Detta Fra Di Noi (PoTorch, 1982) and Elf Bagatellen (FMP, 1990). In recent years, they’ve referenced their own history with recordings made during their annual “winter journey“ - Bauhaus Dessau (Intakt, 2010) and Features (Intakt, 2015), the latter a collection of fifteen sketches, displaying the characteristic features of their sound.

Warsaw Concert sums up the band’s aesthetic, the depth of their music rather than sheer energy. There's Schlippenbach's refined pianism, deeply influenced by Thelonious Monk, Parker's masterful and elaborate saxophone skills and Lovens's distinctively tuned drum set – collectively, a familiar but flexible sonic signature. In this performance they've integrated typical elements like Evan Parker's circular breathing solo (terminated with a torrent of massive piano chords and a cymbal crescendo), the pulsating duos between Schlippenbach and Lovens, and themes like Eric Dolphy's "Miss Ann" and "Out There" as well as Schlippenbach’s composition "Marcia di Saturno" (from Berlin Contemporary Orchestra’s The Morlocks and Other Pieces, FMP, 1994). In the liner notes Schlippenbach points out that these themes are not used as quotations but as a "reference to our own history, creating contrasts and also as a springboard for further development". The uncertainty of the destination has always been an exciting part of their concerts.

This performance isn't from their annual tour, but took place during the 2015 Ad Libitum Festival in a concert hall of the Polish broadcasting company, a sympathetic acoustic recording, captured with revealing clarity. Sadly, Warsaw Concert might be the swan song of this great trio in its legendary line-up, since Paul Lovens didn't joined them on their most recent "winter journey" due to problems with his back and knee (he was replaced by Paul Lytton). It’s unclear if his condition will hinder future touring, but it would be nice if they could get together for one-off concerts such as this. There are still people out there who need their music.

Warsaw Concert is available on CD. You can buy it from the label: http://www.intaktrec.ch or http://www.instantjazz.com or http://www,downtownmusicgallery.com.

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Colour Out Of Space Festival: There still exists adventurous music

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

During the flight that took me to England and all the way to Brighton, there was a song stuck in my head. It was Mississippi Fred McDowell's blues classic 'You Gotta Move', famously covered by the Rolling Stones in the early 70's. This great song being a hymn to the need of constantly evolving and not sticking to your small or big, consequential or not, accomplishments, I found it a perfect match for my expectations from the seventh edition of Colour Out Of Space Festival which was held in various venues across the vibrant city of Brighton.

A festival is always a different case than organizing the program of, let's say, a venue. It must have a concept, a central idea behind the choice of the artists. It must - kind of at least - impose on us, the attendants, some questions that need to be answered and some ideas that give us food for thought. After a three year hiatus the COOS fest was back and with a lot of the above.

Even its own existence as well as its choice of artists, poses right from the beginning, serious thoughts about music, or art in general, that stands on the margins of what we call normality, or what we even call music. Brexit is a very recent fact that looms above everything in England these days and one of the threats that it presents is that there will be no more funding for people, organisations and festivals that choose to turn their back (and present very good reasons for that) to the mainstream.

In an imaginary society (that has yet to come) art would come from the people and for the people. Until then, in the capitalist societies we all reside, the taxpayers money should find a way to support art and especially free thinking and experimental art. It is imperative and we don't ask for it, we demand it.

The good people of the COOS festival, among a general feeling that this could be the last edition of the series, did a great job of putting together tight and compact performances over all three days of the events. The people who attended the events (not the usual hip crowd you'd expect - thankfully) did not suffer from the usual “where to go, what to see in so little time” disease of all festivals.The atmosphere was relaxed and every day of the weekend there was new merchandise on the tables for all of us who still love to buy music directly from the artists...


Day 1

On the first day of the events, Friday, the duo of artist and performer Lina Lapelyte and musician Angharad Davies went off the stage and stood, holding two violins, in the middle with the crowd, in total silence, forming a circle around them. It was a circle of anticipation. Part performative and part musical their show had theatricality and was full of energy. The performative elements were more clear the moment they put down their instruments and rushed around the theater to take positions again.Their half hour performance had the urgency of playful improvisation and made us wanting more.

Cassis Cornuta made himself one of the most remembered figures of the weekend. And most probably not for his performance. During every show that interested him he was first by the stage so he could check what was going on. His eyes had the glare of a small child eager to listen and learn, curious about everything.This is what we need, people who are willing to listen and investigate. On the other hand his show was the opposite. Hidden behind a wall (both literally and practically) of noise made by huge loudspeakers, he had no eye-contact with the rest of us. His performance seemed unwilling to communicate with the audience, like it was meant to be only for himself. Maybe it was.

Which is not what happened with the playful quartet of Clappy Shandy Dads. The four men (Dylan Nyoukis, Julian Bradley, Alex Drool and Luke Poot) performed sitting down behind microphones, found objects and tools. Like a loud, noisy rock band in the beginning, when they started rolling and incorporated tons of humour, they were transformed into crooners of the other side. With voices hidden behind feedback like a poly-rhythmic tree of sounds that spread inside the theater as time went by, conventional notions of music were destroyed and a snare drum provided the rhythm section.

Later that same night I expected a lot from Matt Krefting's closing of the first day. He did not deliver, at least for me. He based his performance in heartwarming elements: a cassette player and pre-recorded sounds. The air of nostalgia didn't quite work.


Day 2

The second day of the festival began with one of the unknown and definitely not expected thrills of the weekend. Despite the nasty weather the atmosphere of One Church was cozy and relaxed. On the other hand Michael Barthel looked nerdy and nervous in the beginning. His phonetic word poetry was loud, sometimes rude, never ugly, and demanded our full attention. He experimented not only with the words (do you speak German?) but also with the tone of his voice which was fragile and angry at the same time. Driving his voice to the limits, he did the same with the audience that filled the church. The audience endured his attack, so did his throat.What a wonderful performance.

Later in the evening all the shows were given to artists who practice around Fylkingen of Stockholm.I must admit that it seemed an erratic choice when I first thought of it. On the other hand as neoliberal politics keep on marginalizing free thinking art, we need to return to the basics and one of them is, certainly, to keep giving a voice to all the institutions that are still trying to fight the power with what they've got.

The performance act duo of WOL (Wenche Tankred and Lovisa Johansson) entered the theater ready to battle the crowd and themselves. Using only wrapping tapes, they created room for their performance (not on the stage but within the crowd) and made the tapes take numerous shapes and sounds like noise or string instruments.Their dual physical actions were in perfect co-ordination full of humor and ready to mock themselves at any time. By transforming something so meaningless into everything they pointed out the as-serious-as-your-life aspect of a 21st century performative Arte Povera. Later Kent Tankred was a little disappointing. Manipulating knobs and buttons he seemed as dull as this gesture shows. Even the black, angry and throbbing sounds that emerged from the speakers had nothing new to offer. Not that I did not like it, but I expected the envelope to be pushed a little bit further. Johannes Begmark closed the second day accordingly. Thankfully for all the artists no-one was to perform after him that day and how could anyone? From the very first second his performance was based in amplification and his body. Eating, drinking and talking to us, we could hear the small noises inside him from a small microphone stuck really deep in his throat. It seemed like he was trying to transmit to us his inner music, his heart beat and the harsh noises of several physical acts. He transformed his body, by making all of it's sounds audible, into an orchestra of uncontrollable noises. He struggled for every second of it's performance and endured driving himself to the limits. A holistic body and audio experience.


Day 3

Early on Sunday, the midday the panel, with Wire's Derek Walmsley presenting, consisted of leading producers from Intenet radio who discussed free-form radio in - as Walmsley put it - the golden era of radio today. It was exhilarating and optimistic to catch the vibe of radio producers talking about the transformation of radio, in 2016, into a medium that transcends new music all around the world and the power of this fact.

Later on, being a little late, I hurried into the main theater to catch the Austrialian born Phantom Chips democratically giving way to the audience to perform along with her. Her wearable noisemakers began giving shape to some kind of primal electro sounds before, with a little help from her new made friends in the audience, turning into a rhythmic gargle that took shape into an atonal noise orchestra. I was puzzled by the control she seemed to have in a situation that seemed chaotic and unpredictable. Probably that was the point and everybody enjoyed it.

On the other hand Birgit Ulher's performance was static and not so funny. It wasn't meant to be after all. Τhe extended techniques she used for her trumpet - as long with some pre-recorded sounds - did not quite work and seemed like a summary of her work for the last ten years or so and not the new thing a live performance has to offer.

Of course presenting John Cage's masterpiece 'Indeterminacy' obviously is not a new thing. But with a work so open to new interpretations I was eager to check the ideas of Stewart Lee as a narrator and Steve Beresford with Tania Chen as performers. As I have learned from listening to Cage's works, I expected nothing and everything. Lee as a narrator had the warmth and humor of the original and at the same time made it his own, unique play. The interplay of the two performers allowed no pauses or delays.The forty randomly chosen passages flowed like a flawless dada performance proving that this work hasn't aged a day at all. Mark Durgan with his white hair - one half of noise troublemakers Olympic Shit Man - also hasn't aged at all. His radical thinking towards art was again transmitted along with co-conspirator Andy Bolus. They promised velocity, they delivered. They promised density and they definitely succeeded. They did everything without resorting to any of noise's old tricks. Partly rhythmic and partly chaotic the provided the perfect soundtrack for me to relax and stop feeling myself at the same time. If you don't get me, that's fine, this was beyond any description, just go and get the albums.

The choice of Iancu Dumitrecu's music as a closer declared loudly the adventurous character of the festival and the will to take risks. I envy that. But with risks there's always the chance to fail. Which was the case here. The grandeur of Dumitrescu's music and his commanding presence did not seem fit for the occasion. In a small scale theater like this with musicians of a communal thought and practice, the explorations of this music didn't get through-at least not to me. It's a pity he also had with him some fine musicians like Alex Drool, Cosmin Postolache and Yoni Silver. I'm pretty sure that if there will be a next edition of the festival, they will certainly please Beckett by failing again and even better!

Closing all the above I must admit that my biggest fail during this wonderful weekend was not showing up to catch Tyler Hubby's documentary about Tony Conrad. Word got out it is good, so go check it out. In any case Conrad's music will reverberate forever.

@koultouranafigo

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Paul Youngquist - A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism (University of Texas Press, 2016) ****

By David Menestres

A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism is a new book by Paul Youngquist published by the University of Texas Press, part of their ongoing “Discovering America” series. Not a biography as such (for that there is always John Szwed’s excellent Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra), but an attempt to explain both the mythology behind Sun Ra’s work and to situate his output in a wider cultural context, both of which Youngquist does very capably.

Youngquist is a professor in the English department at the University of Colorado Boulder as well as being Associate Chair of Graduate Studies. His prose is generally well constructed, interesting, and creative enough to be engaging. He does a good job of exploring Sun Ra’s wide ranging interests in occult and non-mainstream ideas and shows how they influenced his thoughts and practices. And at under 300 pages (not including footnotes, bibliography, and index) the book is a manageable size.

Perhaps my favorite part of the book, certainly the part that was most unexpected, is where Youngquist draws comparisons between Sonny and the great mystic William Blake, something I had not previously considered.

"Blake’s unshakeable devotion to creative autonomy in his own historical moment of revolutionary fervor"… aligns Sun Ra’s poetry with a potent tradition of cultural insurgence. Like Blake, Sun Ra constructed an ideological architecture for his poems that enhances their claims. A myth sustains their meanings. And like Blake, he worked as an artist outside the industry that would claim his labor. Blake, too, self-published his poetry—engraving, printing, and illuminating his books by hand; selling them to friends and fans directly, and living in obscurity for his reward" (p. 77).

In the same chapter and throughout the book, Youngquist delves into an aspect of Ra’s output that is often over looked, his poetry and other writings. Sun Ra’s writing is often as oblique as his music, engaging in extensive wordplay and subterfuge, but Youngquist carefully unpacks many of his poems showing how they contain clues to the mythology that was so central to Sonny’s music. Youngquist also delves deep into the broadsides and other writing that Sun Ra left behind.

A large part of the book deals with placing Sun Ra in a broader cultural context. Like everyone else, even those claiming to be from Saturn, Sun Ra didn’t exist in a vacuum. He lived and worked and struggled as a black man in America, which has never been easy, even today. Youngquist does a solid job of showing how Sun Ra was influence by the world and how the world was influence by him.

My only real complaint about the book is the few places where Youngquist takes the liberty to imagine conversations for which we have no exact record of what occurred. It happens in three main places: a conversation between Herman Blount (as he was then known) and the judge when Blount didn’t report to the camp for conscientious objectors during World War II, a conversation in Washington Park (Chicago) between Ra and another man, and again at the end of the book when Youngquist imagines Sun Ra’s last words from his hospital bed in Birmingham. These are all footnoted and documented as imagined conversations that cleave as closely as possible to the historical record, but they still bothered me, no matter how historically accurate they may be.

As an object, the hardcover is a nice book. An uncredited jacket design in reds and oranges against black is very pleasing, but the book is most handsome without the jacket: beautiful yellow cloth with a simple font on the spine for the title, author’s last name, and the publisher’s logo. The yellow cloth is especially nice against the black endpapers.

Overall, A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism is a good read, and one I imagine any Sun Ra fan would enjoy. Even if you’re not into Sun Ra, this book might help you at least appreciate his work. While maybe not an “essential” read, it is well worth your time to check it out.

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The International Nothing (... And Something) - The Power Of Negative Thinking (Monotype Records, 2016) ***½

By Eyal Hareuveni

The International Nothing is the Berlin-based duo of clarinet players Kai Fagaschinski and Michael Thieke. The two have been working together since 2000, refining a highly personal language focused on introspective, microtonal textures through stasis, patiently investigating timbre, multiphonics and extended techniques, with a commanding intensity spiced with a dry sense of humor (reflected also in the cover art by Japanese Masae Tanabe). This duo has released three albums on the Japanese label Ftarri (Mainstream, 2006; Less Action, Less Excitement, Less Everything, 2010 and The Dark Side of Success, 2014).

Fagaschinski and Thieke collaborated together with other musicians, as the avant-pop quartet The Magic I.D. (with vocalists Margareth Kammerer and Christof Kurzmann), but The Power of Negative Thinking is the first recorded document of The International Nothing collaborating with other musicians. The duo first met drummer-percussionist Eric Schaefer and double bass player Christian Weber in 2006 and recorded The Power Of Negative Thinking on December 2011. Calling the new outfit The International Nothing (... And Something) means that it was a true collective effort.

The expanded International Nothing sound is still a disciplined, precisely determined unit but the now sonic envelope is more dynamic and deeper with the addition of Schaefer delicate, percussive colors and the dark bass of Weber. Schaefer and Weber embrace and contrast Fagaschinski and Thieke's nuanced and patient, almost transparent flow of multiphonics and overtones with a soft and distant layer of resonating, deep-toned noises as on “We Can Name You Their Names”, “What You Need to Know About Drowning” and the contemplative march of “Nothing’s Gonna Last Forever”. But this contrasting approach also intensifies The International Nothing refined playing into surprising terrains. Suddenly a more concrete, erratic pulse, becomes playful on “The Golden Age Of Miscommunication” and even joyful one on “Something Went Wrong” that adopts a twisted dub pattern. I guess that it is always useful to challenge your way of thinking, whether it is negative or positive.

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Bushman's Revenge - Jazz, Fritt Etter Hukommelsen (Rune Grammofon, 2016) ***½

By Stefan Wood

The title, translated as "Jazz, from Memory," has Bushman's Revenge returning to their roots, as this album strives more towards jazz rather than the exuberant fusion improv that the trio has been known for. While more relatively subdued than their other efforts, it is no less passionate, a combination of contemplative Jimi Hendrix inspired blues with 60's era post bop. A comparison could be made to the work of James Blood Ulmer's jazz/blues fusion, but Bushman's Revenge is not rooted in the Mississippi Delta, but in Hendrix's riffs and improvisations, almost to a fault. 

The album opens with a cover of the McCoy Tyner track "Contemplation" (from the Blue Note album The Real McCoy), a slow paced piece altered by Evan Helte Hermansen's blistering guitar, shifting the piece from a simmer to a hot burn, fusing the sounds of Tyner's piano and Bobby Hutcherson's vibes into raucous guitar chords. "0500" has an excellent rumbling Rune Nergaard bass solo to open the track, followed by Hermansen firm picking and drummer Gard Nilssen's nimble percussive playing, which evolves into a more 70's jazz rock mode, a la Mahavishnu Orchestra mixed with Mahogany Rush. Such variety is good, but the influences sometimes gets in the way of the improvisations, because one starts to identify the sources, and overlook the totality of the music. "Bo Marius" is a nice spiritual improv blues track, one foot rooted in Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac and the other in modern prog, lumbering along amiably as Hermansen and Nilssen both take center stage with snarling guitar and aggressive drumming. "Gamle Plata Til Arne" is the choice track on the album, with Jimmy Page Zeppelin guitar riffing mercilessly over heated bass and drums, spiritual jazz sourced, hard rock executed. "Angels" is an Albert Ayler cover, an interesting musical exploration of the track that is less interested in free noise expression than the spiritual nuances of the piece, culling it out using guitar, while the others explore the harmonic aspects, utilizing at times brief sheets of sound to blues roots rhythms. "Lola Mit Dem Gorgonzola" closes the album with a beautiful, harmonic and soft piece, guitar reminiscent of Gabor Szabo when he played with Chico Hamilton, subtly complex and engaging. 

Jazz, Fritt Etter Hukommelsen is an album that finds Bushman's Revenge not sitting on their laurels, but actively pushing forward and playing with different forms and textures. As a result, there is some unevenness among the tracks, and the influences are a bit too apparent at times, this is still a very good effort.

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Happy New Ears!

Dear readers,

This year we present the Happy New Ears award as a collaboration of the blog's writers and you, our readers, choices. The blog nominated five albums, and after reader's nomination, added five more. The only rule was that the album was reviewed on the blog this year (which means some important albums missed this list, unfortunately).

We are pleased to announce the readers choice Happy New Ears 2016 Album of the Year, and wish everyone another exciting year of music in 2017!

1. Wadada Leo Smith - America's National Parks (Cuneiform) 18.3% 
   
   Wadada Leo Smith and his Golden Quintet continue on their ambitious path to bring us new music that is both innovative and accessible. It is as grand and epic as his large ensembles of the past year, but because of the quintet's more human or intimate setting, the feelings, the vision and the individual quality of the musicians make the result even stronger. Regardless of the excellent work of the past few years ... the best of both the Golden Quartet and the "classical" works converge in this phenomenal album. Wadada Leo Smith brings modern music to a completely new level.
   
2. Pascal Niggenkemper - Talking Trash (Clean Feed) 15.8%
3. Fire! – She Sleeps, She Sleeps (Rune Grammofon)  14.3%
4. Peter Evans - Genesis (More is More) 11.7%
5. Mary Halvorson Octet - Away With You (Firehouse 12) 10.3%
6. Anna Högberg Attack - Self-Titled (Omlott)  7%
7. Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith  - A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke (ECM) 7%
8. Ingrid Laubrock - Serpentines (Intakt) 5.5%
9. Henry Threadgill - Old Locks and Irregular Verbs (Pi Recordings) 5.1%
10. Tyshawn Sorey - Inner Spectrum of Variables (Pi Recordings) 5.1% 

Happy New Ears to All!

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